Email-gate Updates: Hillary Used Multiple Devices, Server Forensics, And More

Yes, we are all sick of this, but in order to get to the bottom of Benghazi – if that’s still where people want to go in the name of justice – then we’re going to have to stick it out. Not that this is any great shock, but Hillary lied.

First, the multiple devices: remember at the “press conference” where Mrs. Clinton stepped into the quicksand and insisted that she chose the use her personal email for official State Department correspondence for convenience as she only wanted to carry one device? It is with a USA Today story where we learn she sent email from her iPad, the official count of wireless devices Hillary used for State Department business is at least three – Blackberry, iPhone, iPad, and probably a mini too. Just wanted to carry one device, huh.

Next, is the “wiped clean” server. This morning, Judge Andrew Napolitano talked about asking some friends of his in intelligence work if it was possible to actually wipe a server so clean that nothing could be pulled from it. On Fox & Friends (video here) he claimed that the people at Fort Meade said, get the server to us and we’ll get the data off of it. Anyone who follows technology at all knows that there is no way to really completely delete anything from electronic devices. To really destroy digital data totally and completely, the device has to be completely destroyed. It may take a lot of cash and somebody who really knows what they are doing, but if what was turned over to the Special Committee on Benghazi is the actual server, recovering what was on it is definitely possible. (More on this topic from Politico.)

Then there was the little matter of the emails going through the air on unsecured networks. Missed in the Friday news dump a few days back was three Senators, all chairmen of oversight committees, asking for an investigation from the State Department Inspector General on whether or not Mrs. Clinton’s emails could have been intercepted by foreign governments as there are daily attacks on American government computer systems, and her server did not have all the fancy encryption that comes with cyber-security. From Washington Free Beacon:

Clinton’s personal email could have become “a priority target for foreign intelligence services,” according to a letter sent to the State Department inspector general by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R., Tenn.), Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr (R., N.C.), and Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) on March 12.

‘We write to you today concerning the recent revelations that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other top aides used non-State Department email addresses and servers to conduct official U.S. Government business,” the senators wrote. “We are concerned that diplomatically sensitive, and possibly classified, information may have been transmitted and stored in an insecure manner.”

“The use of privately maintained information systems that are not protected by federal government experts and key technical capabilities raises serious concerns as those networks may be less secure,” they wrote.

More worms in the bottomless can, and one more cut to add to the 647 that just aren’t draining the life out of Hillary Clinton yet. Anyone with half a brain who knows how all this technology works knows that they have a point – and that doesn’t even consider how unsecure the iCloud is if Mrs. Clinton was using her iPad.

The longer this goes on, the more it looks like the answers on what happened at Benghazi are going to take a back seat to investigating how Hillary Clinton conducted business without oversight and without using government resources for intelligence. (That gem resurfaced over the weekend as well. (DC Gazette story here.) Those were issues popular on conservative blogs over two years ago, and were dismissed at the time.

No magic wand is going to make it all go away this time. And we are still no closer to knowing how Benghazi went down and why four Americans were sacrificed.

About the Author

A resident of Flyover Country, Cultural Limits is a rare creature in American Conservatism - committed to not just small government, Christianity and traditional social roles, but non-profits and high arts and culture. Watching politics, observing human behavior and writing are all long-time interests.
In her other life, CL writes romance novels under her nom de plume, Patricia Holden (@PatriciaHoldenAuthor on Facebook), and crochets like a mad woman (designs can be found on Facebook @BohemianFlairCrochet and on Pinterest on the Bohemian Flair Crochet board).
In religion, CL is Catholic; in work, the jill of all trades when it comes to fundraising software manipulation and event planning; in play, a classically trained soprano and proud citizen of Cardinal Nation, although, during hockey season, Bleeds Blue. She lives in the Mid-Mississippi River Valley with family and two cute and charming tyrants...make that toy dogs.

‘m not holding my breath waiting somebody to actually get a hold of those servers and do something ie ream them for info. seems like nobody is willing to grab the bull by the horn and actually do what should be done ie seize them and turn them over to experts to find out what is on there.